Real Fluid Quasi-Conservative Method: Mechanical Equilibrium Mechanism and Liquid-Upwind Anomaly

From the perspective of continuum thermodynamics, we revisit the pressure oscillation problem in finite-volume methods for real fluids and clarify the physical counterpart of the Real Fluid Quasi-Conservative (RFQC) method.

The RFQC method recovers the mechanical-equilibrium pressure by evolving the affine parameters xi and E0 of the isentropic internal energy-pressure relation along pathlines, while the thermodynamic re-projection converts the deviation from the isentropic trajectory into an internal-energy error, thereby ensuring the thermodynamic consistency and numerical stability of the method.

We then investigate the applicability limit of the RFQC method and identify a Liquid-upwind Anomaly (LUA) in extreme phase-change cases.

For a Riemann problem involving liquid-vapor phase change, a numerical anomaly may occur if a liquid-upwind translational velocity is initially superimposed and exceeds a certain threshold.

Theoretical analysis reveals that this anomaly is initiated by the orders-of-magnitude jump in the affine slope xi during phase change, which subsequently delays the pressure rise in the downstream low-pressure cell.

Concurrently, the re-projection equivalently removes the positive pressure increment.

As a result, a large re-projection internal-energy error is repeatedly generated in this anomalous cell, and the cell is trapped in a cycle of delayed low-pressure recovery.

The analysis indicates that the LUA is a start-up anomaly, which can be resolved by introducing a regularization strategy at the initial discontinuity.

With the proposed regularization strategy, the RFQC method is equipped with enhanced accuracy and robustness for extreme thermodynamic flows, such as sonic phase-change jets.